profound thought to the intellectual problems and spiritual aspirations of his era.  Nor does the Memoir, as a revelation of the poet’s intellectual and personal life, fall away, on any page of it, from the high plane on which it has been prepared and written.  There is no undue invasion, which a son’s pride might be apt to make, of domestic privacy, and no dealing with irrelevant topics or elaboration of those set forth with becoming modesty and restraint; far less is there the discussion of any subject, for a trivial or vain purpose.  Throughout the work we meet with no unnecessary lifting of veils or treatment of themes merely to satisfy morbid curiosity.  Everywhere there is the evidence of sound judgment, unimpeachable taste, and a wholesome sanity.  This is especially the case in the frank revelation of the poet’s views on religion and his attitude towards scientific and theological thought, to which we have ourselves referred.  In this respect, a large debt is due to the biographer for setting before the reader, not only the high ethical purpose which Tennyson had in view in selecting the themes of his poems and in the mode of handling them, but, as we have said, in showing us what beyond peradventure were his religious opinions, and, despite a certain curtaining of gloom, how profoundly he was influenced by faith in the Divine life.  Nor is the least interest in the Memoir to be found in the light the biographer throws on the poet’s writings as a whole—­how they were conceived and elaborated, and on the often hidden meaning that underlies some of the most thoughtful verse.  This, to students of the Laureate’s writings, is of high value, in addition to the service rendered by the biographer in tracing in his father’s poetic work the influences which fashioned it and the pains he took to give it its marvellous beauty and artistic finish of expression.

It is this instructive as well as skilled and dignified treatment, with the vast literary and deep personal interest in the life, that will commend the Memoir to all who are proud of the Laureate’s fame, and wished to have nothing written that was unworthy of either the poet or the man, or that would in the least detract from his laurels.  Nor does the restraint which the biographer imposes upon himself conceal from us the man in his human aspects, or lead him to set before the reader an imaginary, rather than a veritable and real, portraiture.  We have a picture, it is true, of an almost ideal domestic life, and of a man of rare gifts and fine culture, whose work and career have been and are the pride and glory of the English-speaking race.  But we have also the story of an author not free from human weaknesses, and though endowed with manifold and great gifts, yet who had to labor long and earnestly to perfect himself in his art, and in his early years had much discouragement and not a little adversity to contend with.  With all the toil and stress his early years had known, when success came to the poet no one was less unspoiled by it; and when sunshine fell upon and gilded his life, maturing years brought him serenity, happiness, and, at length, peace.